


Lovely To Finally Meet You

by Robertdoc



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Awesome Wanda Maximoff, BAMF Wanda Maximoff, Episode 1x07: Breaking the Fourth Wall, F/M, Gaslighting, Hurt Wanda Maximoff, Speculation, Spoilers, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29579775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robertdoc/pseuds/Robertdoc
Summary: SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 107Though Agnes - Agatha Harkness - has revealed herself, she's not done messing with Wanda's mind yet. Not through mind control, but through more painful reminders of what Wanda allowed to happen in Westview, gaslighting her into believing she's exactly the kind of person who would let it happen, and offers to stay in Westview forever that Wanda can't convince herself she should turn down anymore.Until a blast from a familiar, suddenly rebuilt object brings back a memory of what she really did right before the Hex formed,  who she really tried to be even at the lowest point of her life - and who she's finally ready to introduce Agatha to now. But even that may not be enough.Another attempt at a Wanda character study that doubles as a wish fulfillment/theory for future episodes, tries to explain the still unexplained trailer snippets left, and seeks to give Wanda a real chance to heal and remember she's not just another all powerful woman who went unstable from grief - in case the show forgets to really try in the little time left it gave itself.
Relationships: Agatha Harkness & Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	Lovely To Finally Meet You

**Author's Note:**

> There are no spoilers beyond episode 7 to watch out for, as this is purely speculation - half of this story being a personal collection of theories on the trailer snippets that still haven't aired yet [like Wanda being blasted by what looks like the Mind Stone and she and Vision declaring "This is our home....then let's fight for it" - all even more bizarre after ep 7], and half an effort to create a scenario where Wanda gets to start healing, remind herself who she really is and who she wants to be, and rescue herself from the brink so the show finally stops flirting with the same old tired "all powerful woman goes unstable from grief/trauma cause...all powerful women, am I right, fellas?" cliches - which should theoretically be a little easier now that "Agnes" has been exposed a week after she should have been, when there was more time than just 2 episodes left to pivot back to the narrative fully feeling for Wanda instead of suspecting/fearing her.
> 
> But in case there really isn't enough time or effort left to do such a pivot full justice, this what-if/pre-emptive guess at episode 8 will still try to do the job for it.

_“It’s been Agatha all along!”_

At long last, Wanda shook her head enough to get that blasted refrain out of her mind. The truth behind it was another thing altogether.

Especially when that truth was standing in front of her, all too amused at her handiwork that froze Wanda in place, unable to use her own magic or move any other muscles. Yet unlike when she implanted that song she just got out of her head and was gonna _keep_ out, Agnes – Agatha – had freed her mind again to be fully aware of what was going on.

Including the fact she wasn’t supposed to be the only person in this…lair or whatever this was.

“Where are my children?” Wanda tried to sound threatening, even though nothing she had to back that threat up was working.

“We’ll get to that,” Agnes – Agatha – the magical girl – the _witch_ – said infuriatingly nonchalant, as if she was still delivering punchlines. “I think it’s best we talk first. Neighbor to neighbor.”

“We’re only neighbors because you put that in my head!” Wanda accused, brushing aside the uncomfortable familiarity of her phrasing. “That…and all of _this_ …is because of you…”

“Oh babe. Now you know I love to sing my own praises,” Agatha virtually hummed, nearly torturing Wanda anew with the memory of her musical bragging. “But I didn’t create WandaVision. I’m just its first fan. It’s biggest fan. No matter what that ‘doctor’ might tell herself.”

“Why would I believe you now?”

“Okay then. Let’s review,” Agatha proposed. “Did I ‘command’ you to go break Vision out of SWORD? Maybe I sent over some clues here and there to break the news to you, but the rest was all you, baby!”

A new flash appeared in Wanda’s head – not of a theme song, but of a memory. Of anonymous clues, videos and other incriminating evidence sent to her about Vision’s capture and experimentation – and of an attack and breakout on SWORD that was fueled by no other magic but her own.

Some parts of which she didn’t realize she had. But it was there. And no one was in her head telling her to use them.

“Did I ‘command’ Hayward to capture him and turn him into a weapon? Trust me, I could have easily made the most over the top, evil bureaucratic nightmare boss character over here, and it’d still have nothing on that guy!” That part Wanda barely needed a flash or a sudden memory to believe.

“Ooh, here’s the good stuff. Did I send some kind of magic evil signal to make you rewind away from that beekeeper guy? Better yet, did I cue you up to toss that unwanted, annoying guest star out of here? The one who still wants you to cancel the show and kill off Vision again, even now?”

Agatha carefully sent Wanda helpful reminders of “Geraldine”’s interference, without reflecting on how “Pietro” had better be making sure she had no more surprise cameos left in her. Preferably before his “brother-in-law” found his way back. Either way, none of that seemed to have seeped into Wanda’s mind, so so far, so good.

“Ah, speaking of Vision! When he started asking too many questions about the thing keeping him alive, the ungrateful little Ralph…it wasn’t me who didn’t care one little bit about the whole ‘everyone in town’s under mind control!’ part of the conversation, was it?”

“But you did send _him_ ….” Wanda shot back. “You made me think my brother was alive…and it wasn’t even close to being him!”

“And who didn’t notice or care enough to know that right then and there?” Agatha challenged. “Granted, your hubby gave me too little time to get the right one. But was it me who was so desperate to keep this place going, and to shut up the nagging husband she built it for, that she welcomed a fake brother into her own home? And allowed her own children to play with an imposter uncle?”

Before Wanda could latch onto the memories of her missing children – to distract her or otherwise – Agatha jumped right back ahead. “And after she blasted that imposter on Halloween, who expanded the town and let dozens of federal agents get their minds scrambled, just to keep Vision from dying again or worse? If not me, then who?”

By now, Wanda would have preferred getting tortured by the song again. Yet in her efforts to put it back in her mind, one particular snippet stood out.

“You sent him there,” Wanda realized. “You told him I was controlling everyone…you made sure he went to the border…you set him up to die or get captured again! Because you were setting _me_ up to save him and expand the town!”

“But I didn’t _make_ you do any of that! There’s a big difference!”

“Just like you didn’t make me control the people of Westview? Well that much is true, because _you_ did that! Not me! And I don’t see you explaining the ‘big difference’ to them!”

“And why is that such a problem for you _now_?” With that, any burst of momentum Wanda might have felt died instantly. But it was very much alive in Agatha.

“You said you didn’t know what was wrong with them, fine. But you had every opportunity to give a damn to find out. More than I intended, but still! Whether you thought you were doing it or you didn’t, none of that mattered enough to you one bit. Because the safety and well-being of a supporting cast is nowhere near as important as that of the leading man. So why should a few little answers change that now?”

“Because…” Wanda knew there were dozens of good answers for that. On paper, anyway. Paper written by someone who hadn’t…who didn’t….

“Exactly, kiddo. All of this is exactly what you wanted from the beginning. What you still want now. All I did was try to make sure everything you did and wanted, out of your own free will, went a little smoother. I…miscalculated a few times, sure! But it’s nothing I can’t help you – not make you, _help_ you – retcon all better again.”

Wanda searched her mind, more desperately with every second, for signs she was being put under and influenced like she was minutes ago. Anything to dismiss these last few minutes as some kind of trick. Anything to prove there were lies of any kind being told. Anything to help her distract herself.

But there was no “brother” coming this time. No threat from the outside was here yet to turn her rage towards. And even though she could fool Vision for only so long, there was no such grace period of denial from Agatha.

“Hey, I’m not trying to judge you,” she dared to sound reassuring and flattering. “Hell, I admire you! Even more than I did before I came here!”

Nonetheless, Agatha was the last possible outside threat Wanda could use as an excuse to gloss over everything else. It wasn’t working so far, but she had to try at least one more time. Give herself one last longshot hope of keeping her fragile bubble from popping.

“And why do you care so much?” Wanda tried to summon enough of an accusatory tone to make Agatha look like the real target. “Why did you come here just for me?”

“Like I said, I admired you. One magical gal fangirling over another, you know? I just had…other commitments that kept me from visiting while you were alive the first time. When you came back, I knew I couldn’t waste my shot again…but then I found out about Vision.”

“Yet you didn’t tell me in person?”

“I figured sending over hard evidence would convince you faster. And it worked! But then when you got away, I don’t know…I guess it all hit you too hard for you to keep going out there. Then when I saw you create the Hex, I figured…I could help make the illusion more perfect! Create and direct a whole supporting cast to help the reunited lovebirds stay together forever! It was the least I could do for someone no one else would help, wasn’t it?”

Another flash flooded Wanda’s vision – whether Agatha was putting the scene in her head, or Wanda was remembering on her own, almost didn’t matter anymore. She felt the truth of it either way.

She felt the horrible truth of the empty, awful nothingness that broke her enough to cast the Hex over Westview, and over Vision’s lifeless body next to her in the field. Only this time she could remember Agatha by her side at the same time, casting her own magic that put the townspeople under a spell they were all still under.

A spell she only got the chance to use because Wanda wasn’t watching. Because Wanda was too lost in her own grief to care about the outside world anymore. To care about it ever again, as a matter of fact. A world that already took everything from her, wanted to keep taking from him, and would go right back to hunting him and her down all over again unless she kept it away forever.

Kept everything connected to it – including their own memories – away forever. And kept everything anyone else near her remembered from the outside world locked away forever too.

That part, she was too busy creating the Hex to consider at that moment. Maybe. And yet someone from that horrible outside world…slipped in enough to cover those bases? And stayed there to keep them covered? For her? For them?

Wanda had made herself believe far wilder things.

“There you go, it’s okay,” Agatha’s soothing tone actually sounded soothing to her now. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You just finally took something back for yourself that the universe never should have taken away. The rest is a pesky asterisk.”

That was good to hear after what Wanda had remembered. After so many other things she wished she didn’t. It would be so easy to keep hearing it…so much easier than everything Vision, Pietro, that woman and her horrible agency had said to the contrary lately…

At the price of a few thousand people and government agents she didn’t even know. That was…

“Is it?” Wanda asked, more half-heartedly than a still stubborn part of her was comfortable with.

“Come on, Wands. You didn’t do anything here you haven’t done before. Not one thing you did is out of character for you. And so what if some really hypocritical so-and-sos believe it makes you ‘evil’ now? So what if they, of all evil people, have the gall to think you’re just another all powerful woman that went nuts because…all powerful women, am I right, fellas? Then make it work for you! Make it work by keeping the family they want to take away from you forever! And to hell with the rest of it!”

“But that’s not…” Wanda’s half-hearted resistance dipped to a quarter-heart and falling.

“What they would say? What the Avengers would say? Then where are _they_ if they care so much for you, huh? The super soldier’s dust now! The widow literally jumped off a cliff! The guy who killed your parents is a God to this world now! The fat actual God is long gone! All those women you fought with have no more girl power left to spare for you! And the archer’s gonna move on with a brand new surrogate daughter soon…oops, spoilers!” Agatha pretended to scold herself.

“Face it, kid. If they weren’t sick and tired of cleaning up your team and universe shattering messes, they’d be here. But you never needed them. Or the false label of being a ‘hero’ that never fit you anyway, anyway. Just him. And the children.”

The children…

One final last temporary distraction from the terrible truth after all. “You said we’d get to the children…” Wanda reminded.

“We will. I’m trying to make sure SWORD doesn’t get them first. I’ve got them in the safest place I have, but no place will be safe until they’re gone for good! That’s where I can still help you one last time.”

“Last time?” Wanda struggled to keep up.

“I admit, I overstayed my welcome here. But that was when the Hex needed the extra help. Now thanks to you, its powerful enough to combine my magic and yours to make it indestructible! To make it so SWORD is kicked out and can never come back! To keep it off the radar of everyone in the universe, for all time! To keep you, Vision and the kids here…alive and well…for the rest of your very long, undisturbed lives together.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do that at the start, but it wasn’t ready. You weren’t ready. But now that you are, and I’m just about ready to get outta here, I can give you this one last gift. I can leave here, then put this place in some far corner of the universe, make sure no one else ever comes in, make sure Vision never questions the gift of life you gave him again, and make sure no one comes for him or the kids again.”

“You don’t even have to do it yourself. All you have to do is let me. Nothing you haven’t done before. Then you never have to do anything but be with your family again.”

It was almost perfect.

Nothing to do but live an entire full life with the only family she had. Which was already the reason Wanda and all this was here in the first place.

This would just ensure it would stay that way forever. Which was the whole goal in the first place.

It wouldn’t even be her doing. All she had to do was what she’d already been doing. Stay quiet and ignore everything other than her family.

Including the mass, permanent imprisonment of thousands of mind-controlled people.

So almost perfect.

“Do I really need the rest of them for that?” Wanda asked. Not accusatorily, not with judgment, and not with any strong objections one way or the another. The part of her that should have minded that was getting harder to hear. The fact it was even harder to hear it with a full and clear mind would have been worse to bear otherwise.

“Well, it’s too late to let them go and blab to the world now. Since they’d be passing up the same level of protection, immortality and paradise you guys would have, with no more glitches to interrupt it, they’d be pretty dumb to try! And you’d be pretty cruel to let them!”

“And this isn’t cruel?” Wanda made herself press on in spite of herself.

“They’re gonna be fine. They’ll spend a perfect eternity together and blissfully happy, just like you. And either way, it’s not something you should start caring about now. I mean, if you cared about those sort of things before…you would have killed Vision and kept half the universe from ever dying, long before you and Thanos ever reached Wakanda. Wouldn’t you?”

Maybe on its own, that wouldn’t have been the harsh reality check to break Wanda. Maybe it would have, considering how harsh a reality it was. One that waited through five years of nothingness, a few weeks of mourning and several more weeks of a self-created reality to finally puncture through.

But now the wait was over. Now this one last terrible, unlivable truth about who Wanda Maximoff really was – who everyone knew her to be, who everyone told her she was in so many ways, so many times until she had to believe it – who even Vision had to remember she was by now…who would always remember it unless she let this one last terrible thing happen that had to happen….

It had sunk in all over again. And it broke her.

And because someone else’s magic was binding her and cocooning her now, she didn’t have to worry about her magic destroying anything and anyone else when her grief poured out.

Not that she ever did before.

Agatha kept her tightly coiled in the embrace of her magic, but at least let her sink to the floor while she cried out five years and several weeks worth of pain. Or maybe a few decades more than that.

Yet in the ultimate break of her denial, of so many things, Agatha’s magic cuddled around her. Warmed her up. Soothed her without taking control of her. Like nothing else could now. Like nothing else ever would for Wanda without being forced to again.

But at least then _something_ would.

“There, there, hon,” Agatha bent down to continue comforting her. “It’s all good. You’re just not a hero, or that good or selfless of a person, that’s all. I don’t know, maybe you are just another unstable woman too emotional to control powers you shouldn’t have. But that’s not a bad thing. In fact, it means staying in a world full of people who have to love you is the best thing you can do!”

“But I won’t make you choose that. I wouldn’t do that to you. I’m the only one left who can understand you…and I won’t abuse that by making up your mind for you. If you’re going to decide to do this, I want it to be your choice and your choice only. Just keep in mind we’re on a bit of a time crunch here…”

There was no time left to mourn. 

_Now…is no time at all…_

The cocoon of Agatha’s magic strained further as the memories flooded over Wanda anew, and would have made her lay waste to everything around her without her restraints.

One more reason why this had to be the last time she remembered at all.

Everything she could remember again pointed to it. Everything she chose not to remember or acknowledge pointed to it. Every point Agatha made that Wanda had already thought to herself long ago, along with some brand new ones, pointed to it.

Being a hero – being a good person worthy of a hero – would have dictated she reject Agatha, free the town, bury Vision away from Agatha and SWORD and keep him buried, and accept her children may or may not even still be there when the Hex came down.

Being a hero would have meant doing a lot of things that she didn’t actually do.

Now that Wanda could no longer delude herself into forgetting that, there was only one person left, in any world, who knew it and wasn’t out to judge or punish her for it. One person who could make sure the three most important people left in any world would – could – never do that again. One person left who wanted to help her keep the only possible world she had left.

If others needed to be stuck it for it to function…how could she possibly be a person who started caring about it now?

Trying to be such a person didn’t stop her from ending up here. Didn’t stop him from ending up here.

Pretending in the outside world didn’t work. There was only one place left where it could. She knew that when she made this place…and now that she remembered more than ever, she just…couldn’t do that again.

If that meant ensuring they and everyone else here couldn’t either, then…what else could be expected from her?

“Yes,” Wanda consented of her own free will. Then when Agatha couldn’t hear her, she had to force herself to do it again with the tiny bit of strength her voice had left.

“Good!” Agatha agreed with far more pep, before releasing Wanda from her no longer necessary magical bonds.

“I just got a couple little things to tie up before we’re ready to go! But when I come back, we’re gonna salvage the show with the grandest finale and happiest ending of all time! Then it’ll be safe for your kids to come out, you and Vision and everyone else will be brand spanking new, and then I am outta here! See you then!”

Agatha hummed her way out as she exited through one of the doors in her lair. This time, Wanda could block the tune out – to say nothing of the orange light glowing out of the doorway before Agatha locked it up behind her.

A minute of silence went by as Wanda stood by herself in the middle of the lair. Then another. It was only bearable because Wanda knew it was one of the last minutes of silence with her unscrubbed mind she’d ever have to endure again.

It was almost sickening to be grateful for that. But it could be worse. She was almost surprised Vision hadn’t already charged in here, ready to talk her out of all this.

Ready to foolishly believe she was the kind of person that could. If she was, none of them would be here. If she was, maybe he’d have been buried for five years in a completely intact universe already.

But Agatha was right. She didn’t need to warp her mind to convince her of what she already knew. Yet once she did warp it and everyone else’s, none of it – any of it – had to matter again. It was all Wanda wanted when she came here to begin with.

Which should have made her feel a lot better right now.

Which should have made more of a difference than it ever would.

“I’m sorry, Viz…” she said for a record that would never be written, or remembered even if it had. “I can’t pretend anymore…at least not out there…”

She couldn’t pretend she didn’t want this – all of this. She couldn’t pretend weeks, years, decades of grief could be overcome to do the right thing that others would – that he would. That he did and got nothing for it.

She couldn’t pretend anymore that anything left of the person she tried to be with him – with them – was left to hold off the inevitable. That she had anything left in her to find her again. That it ever crossed her mind for even a second since she came back.

Agatha was right. She was the only one left who was – for a little while longer.

Fortunately, Wanda wouldn’t remember her enough to miss her in a few minutes. She wouldn’t remember anything but a permanent life with her family, and neither would they. She wouldn’t ever remember that anything wrong had happened to make it that way.

She wouldn’t remember anything she didn’t want to ever again.

Which should have made her feel so much better than it did.

All it did was right now was make her stumble to the nearest door and lay her forehead against it, hoping that this last cry of regret – if not enough remorse – wouldn’t take what little strength was left out of her.

She could still see through her tears, so that was something. In fact, they were less blinding than the…

Wait. What was that peeking from the bottom of the door?

It looked like a light. It wasn’t the orange light from that other door Agatha used. This one looked more yellowish.

And she could feel it right in the core of her magical being.

It was calling out to it. Making her insides tickle and making the magic within them flow. A magical pull she hadn’t felt since she got here, no matter how many times she tricked herself.

A magical pull she only felt when she was near him. When he was alive for real.

For a moment, Wanda let herself believe Vision was behind there. For a moment, she thought she might have the strength to face his unbrainwashed self one last time after all. The next, she remembered that if it was him, she wouldn’t be feeling this pull to him – not to this Vision.

But then what was it?

Without thinking of this as one final distraction before the end, or as one last denial mechanism, Wanda tried to get the door open. When that failed with just her hands, she revived the magic inside them to do the job.

Once she got it open and walked inside, the red from that blast had long faded away. Even if it hadn’t, it would have been overpowered by the yellow shining at the center of that room.

A yellow light that looked more like a small shape the closer Wanda walked towards it.

Walked towards it…like she’d done so many times before when it was on…

No.

It couldn’t be.

Not after she destroyed it. Not after Tony destroyed it. Not after Steve returned it. But then how was it…how was it calling out to her just like it always had, when it altered her and forged him…

How was it anywhere – but most of all, how was it here?!

The Mind Stone…

The longer Wanda started at it as it floated in the middle of the room, the more she could see fainter strands of magic enter into it…almost…Hex colored magic…floating into it and strengthening it….

Enough so that the longer Wanda looked into it, the more it shined and blinded and revved up…until it flat out blasted her.

And then a split second later, she realized what it had blasted her with.

Another split second later, she remembered everything else.

Everything Agatha hadn’t told her.

Everything she erased.

_Agatha came to her like a real next door neighbor, not long after Tony’s funeral. When she showed her her magic, she began to accept her visits. Then she began to look forward to them, when there was nothing else to look forward to._

_She let her open up about Vision in a way she couldn’t with the others. A way she didn’t think she should, given everything and everyone else that had been lost and needed to be rebuilt. But somehow, it felt right to burden Agatha instead._

_Enough to even tell her about her favorite old sitcoms and how they helped her through losing her parents, then Pietro._

_Enough that Agatha returned the favor by directly telling her everything she found out about SWORD, Hayward and Vision._

_Enough so that after Agatha taught her the new skills she needed to break her out, they arranged to meet outside a town called Westview to bury him and hide him from them._

_Enough that when Wanda broke down over the strain of it all, it was Agatha’s soothing words about how they deserved a better world than this that both broke and inspired her._

_As Agatha had told Wanda earlier, this was the moment when Wanda lost herself enough to create the Hex. To create a bubble where she and Vision could live together again. A bubble she was so focused on creating, she barely noticed Agatha spreading her magic out to the townspeople caught underneath._

_Yet as Agatha said, Wanda was too lost to notice any of it._

_Until she expanded her reach enough to breach Agatha’s head. And see what was inside of it._

_See everything she envisioned as a result of the Hex. Of everything she had planned for the Hex._

_Of plans that went back years. At least five….starting when she went to Thanos’s garden after the surviving Avengers left, and retrieved the last remaining, lingering particle of the Mind Stone._

_Continuing when she spent the next five years trying to create a new stone from it, and had only halfway succeeded. Even with her vast power, she didn’t have enough to complete the repairs, and she couldn’t think of a magical source powerful enough to do it._

_Until she learned Wanda had been blipped back into existence. And planned accordingly to meet her. To bond with her and set up this exact moment right now. As a set up for future moments to come. Moments running through her mind right now._

_Like the Hex becoming powerful enough to draw out the remaining power needed for the Mind Stone. Like…black and white scenes of Wanda and Vision scored to a laugh track. Like attacks from the outside world forcing Wanda to make the barrier even larger and more powerful – and easier to exploit._

_And when it was done, Wanda saw the Mind Stone…and two other much larger, blurrier shapes…being delivered by Agatha to…some kind of hellish creature._

_A creature that now had enough power to destroy…not just one world, or one reality, but several…_

_All because he had power that Agatha gave him…that Agatha only had, only planned to have, because of…_

_Because she was about to…._

_“Stop.”_

_Wanda’s eyes returned to normal, even as she continued to forge the Hex bubble over Westview. Even as she saw Agatha spreading her own control over the town, for a purpose she never meant to reveal to her. Just like Ultron never meant to._

_“Stop…”_

_Just like Ultron…exactly like Ultron…it was happening again…her pain was being used against her again…and once again she had to…_

_“Stop it!”_

_The little bit of bubble around Westview stopped growing. Agatha finally had to pause her own handiwork when Wanda got loud enough. With one glare from Wanda, Agatha worked out why and sighed accordingly._

_“Aw, come on, babe. You’re minutes away from driving home with Vision, and you’re gonna quibble over semantics now?”_

_“Those weren’t semantics!” Wanda gasped out, the horrors of the future that Agatha anticipated still flooding over her.  
“Like I said. You’re gonna be safe at home with Vision, and other little surprises, while all that happens. So what’s the problem?” Agatha sounded more testy. “Let’s just finish up here and you can not remember stuff with Viz together, k?”_

_Agatha watched Wanda look down at Vision’s corpse on the ground, content it would set her head back on straight. She heard a quiet “I’m sorry” from Wanda and figured that was that. So she turned back to the town and resumed sending her magic into the heads of its residents._

_For another few seconds before a blast of red magic hit her own head._

_When Agatha turned around, Wanda wasn’t back at work on the Hex bubble, but was raising her red tinged hands at her instead._

_“You can’t do this. We can’t do this. I can’t do this. Not again,” Wanda declared. “Not after everything…” she let hang in a tone that signaled she wasn’t just talking about the bad things._

_“Let this town go and leave. Now.”_

_Instead of cowering from her threat, or her hands, Agatha merely sighed and remarked, “Picky, picky, picky…”_

_Instead of following that up by blasting Wanda, Agatha shot a strain of purple magic at Vision. Enough to lift him up and then slam him back to the ground._

_Just enough to make Wanda run to him. And turn her back just long enough for Agatha to ensnare her mind behind her._

_Wanda strained to turn around and use her magic against her, but could accomplish neither. Agatha dug around in her mind and quickly found exactly what she needed. Every memory – painful or otherwise – of Vision that led Wanda into the dark, empty, desolate, Hex-creating head space she was in minutes ago._

_Agatha didn’t command Wanda to continue performing the Hex. She didn’t have to. She didn’t even have to keep her full attention on Wanda, even as she continued to struggle. As Wanda’s resistance faded, Agatha kept scrambling her mind with her right hand, while her left hand returned to work spreading her mind control through Westview._

_While Agatha could multitask, Wanda was another matter. She tried to turn her head away from Vision’s dead head, hoping against hope that not looking at it could help her fight away the even more painful reminders Agatha brought back to the surface. But as much as she tried to do both, it was nowhere near enough._

_The grief and pain overwhelmed her, albeit this time not entirely by her own will. Looking at Viz’s dead body, remembering it when it was both dead and alive, all while other memories were being snipped away in the background…it would have been all too much under the best of circumstances._

_Under these, it was the worst torture imaginable. For someone like Wanda, even she thought she couldn’t imagine something this bad anymore. But here it was._

_She couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t take any of it anymore. She couldn’t be here anymore. Not without him. Even if it was possible, there was no safe place they could be. There was no safe place anywhere in this world._

_Not like in worlds elsewhere, projected onto a small screen…._

_Now that the brief delay was over, Wanda was right back to work forming the Hex. Agatha just had to keep her mind focused while warping everyone else’s while she was at it. She was already planning to wipe Wanda’s mind of certain memories at this point anyway – she just wasn’t expecting to erase ones this damaging._

_Nonetheless, it was just about done now. Wanda’s mind was arranged exactly as it was meant to be, the town was just about under their full control, the Hex was just about finished, and the house Agatha picked out looked like it would fit over her lair nicely…._

_And in her pocket, the halfway forged Mind Stone was waiting to be fully formed once more. In a matter of episodes, it and much more would be his._

_But first, as Agatha saw the scenery around them turn color, as Wanda screamed out in her oblivious pain, and as the perception of reality twisted around to make a dead robot look alive again…it was just about time for the show._

“Okay, everything’s good to go! They might get in sooner than I thought, but we got enough time to make sure they regret…”

Agatha’s cheery recap stopped right in its tracks. Along with the rest of her when she saw a certain door was opened.

A door then closed, with a loud magical slam, by the suddenly menacing person who had opened it. Who was supposed to be too far gone to move, let alone open a door Agatha really should have double charmed…

But that wasn’t supposed to matter! Not in the state she was in when Agatha left. Gloating to a captured Vision and Rambeau before she left “Pietro” to finish them off, and checking in one last time with him before she delivered his prizes, couldn’t have taken that long!

Yet it was long enough for Wanda to look…like she hadn’t since that night she didn’t remember…or did she…

“I tried to stop you.”

Oh.

“Even when I started the Hex…even in the worst pain of my life…even with the promise of him being alive again…I tried to stop it. Stop _you_. Even then.”

“But…you didn’t,” Agatha settled for reminding. “Just like you didn’t when we got here, so…”

_“Stop it!”_

Agatha swore, as much as she didn’t want to, that the ground rumbled while the power around Wanda’s hands swirled harder, and her voice matched that fury.

“You used me. This _entire time_ …and the _minute_ I realized it, I tried to stop you. It didn’t work. But I _tried_. I tried because even then…I knew all this wasn’t worth…what it was _really_ for. You know why?”

“Because of the power of love?” Agatha relaxed enough to sound bored.

“Because I figured it out already! Right before he was even born! If I realized that in the middle of all my grief and pain, before him _and_ after him…then what does _that_ say about me? Something important…something you needed me to forget…but I don’t anymore.”

Wanda should have probably attacked right there. But she had more to say. More she remembered. More she let this witch make her forget long enough. And she would be damned if she wasn’t going to hear every last word.

“You’re right. I didn’t do anything to stop you in here. But you know, and now I know, that if I remembered everything from that night, I would have. Even if it meant losing Vision, my family, the world I wanted since I was a child…I would have at least _tried_. Maybe I wouldn’t have been the hero that could have stopped you…but I would have been better than what you made me think I was. Better than _you_!”

That would been perfect timing to strike. But Wanda’s words, memories and realizations were still more powerful weapons than magic right now. Especially when Agatha started moving back out of what was increasingly looking like fear.

“That’s because I had Vision. It’s also because I fought every day to be better than I was. And because people forgave me and helped me try. And I would have reached out to them when I was ready…but then _you_ took advantage of me when I wasn’t. You isolated me from them, and from every healthy form of grieving, with every visit until you got us here! And then you kept doing it here!”

“I would have…maybe I could have talked with Vision when he confronted me about this place. Maybe with time, we could have worked it out and figured it all out together…until you set that _thing_ that called itself my _brother_ to our door!”

“And that woman….” Wanda paused to think more clearly about her than she ever had before. “She…she wasn’t like Hayward. Or his goons. Maybe she did want to help me…maybe I could have listened to her today and maybe I would have been ready to…until _you_ twisted me back here!”

Wanda continued her advance on Agatha, who was just about out of room to back up. She reveled in how that seemed to worry her now.

“I am _not_ who you twisted me to be in here. At least I never wanted to be. Not in my right mind. But you used me all this time to make sure I wasn’t, just for some sick experiment to destroy the universe! Just like the rest of them! Because you knew if I ever got my head on right, I would _never_ let this happen! And you kept that from happening to torture me, use me, him and them…all because you’re a coward!”

Agatha’s flinch as her back hit the wall, and her continued shock at her first sight of a Wanda she couldn’t manipulate, puppeteer, twist into the worst version of herself or isolate from the best part of herself – and those who loved those parts – confirmed everything Wanda said. And filled her with an almost sinister glee that chilled her further.

“….and you have every right to be.”

It was Wanda’s turn to twist strands of magical power around someone’s body. Only far, far tighter.

“You meant to lie when you said you ‘finally’ met me today. But that was the only truth you ever told me. You really _hadn’t_ met me until now.”

Wanda lifted Agatha up off the ground, ready now at last to strike, and eager enough to let her accent out for the first time on Westview grounds.

“The name is Wanda Maximoff. I am the _last_ Maximoff, I am an Avenger…and you made the biggest mistake of your life meeting me.”

Wanda swung her arm up at Agatha, but it didn’t connect with her. Yet Agatha did connect and fly right through the roof, the house above it, and through the roof of the Hex itself before Wanda put her arm back down.

“Damn…”

“I believe that’s the right sentiment exactly.”

That wasn’t Agatha. The second voice certainly wasn’t. It was one she hadn’t heard since an awkward Halloween cold opening…one she hadn’t heard with such warmth towards her since long before that…and now it was back.

Well…not really.

But first things first.

Wanda turned around to see not only Vision, but…the woman, both having arrived about a moment after the show was over. In Vision’s case, having arrived from parts…Wanda didn’t care to find out about this morning.

“How did you get here?” Wanda asked, all the power and fury in her having left with Agatha’s departure. All that was leftover was awkwardness, increasing guilt and a sudden loss for anything better to say or ask him.

“Your fake brother commanded Captain Rambeau to capture me, under the command of our fake neighbor. But when she left us, Captain Rambeau freed herself from her control, overpowered him and saved me instead.”

“You? Overpowered him?” Wanda asked, now noticing a glow in…Captain Rambeau’s eyes that helped answer her question.

“Yeah…some kind of Hex side effect. So far, it’s the first good one other than your commercials,” the Captain seemed to laugh off. Yet Wanda didn’t find it so amusing.

She started to apologize, for that and many other things. But she realized she needed to say something else first before she forgot.

“Thank you,” she said with far more softness than she ever used in their last three encounters. “You didn’t have to come back to try and help me…or save him.”

“Yeah, I did.”

Wanda started to apologize again, but again stopped herself, hoping her eyes said it clearly enough. However, she wasn’t the one she needed to apologize to with words, and so much more, in this room first. So she braved herself to turn back around and get started.

“So you know everything now?”

“Captain Rambeau’s associate Dr. Lewis filled in most of the blanks. Agatha Harkness’s gloating before she left the fake Pietro alone to kill us filled in the rest.”

“Vision, I am so sorry…all I wanted was to free your body from Hayward, and then Agatha, she…” Wanda shuddered, all her bravado at defending herself from Agatha now all but gone, when she had nothing but excuses for someone far more important.

“I should have stopped her. I should have stopped all this when we fought. I let her poison my mind…but I _never_ poisoned theirs. I tried to stop her before this happened, I promise you…I didn’t care enough to stop it in here, but if I’d remembered, I swear I…”

“I believe you.”

“Because Agatha bragged about it?”

“Even if she hadn’t, I would believe you. What we had in here was real. And if it was real in here, it was undoubtedly real out there. Therefore, I have no doubt you’re as innocent as you could have possibly tried to be. And I’m sorry I let her trick me into thinking otherwise for even a moment.”

As cathartic as it was to reclaim her sense of her true self while throttling Agatha, none of that compared to the sheer joy, relief and warmth Wanda felt in that moment of forgiveness, exoneration and unconditional love. Which she had now somehow been lucky to gain from Vision for the third time – but only for the second time with no terrible price paid for it.

Wanda exhaled as she blinked back a teary smile at her reunited love. When enough tears were cleared, the first thing she saw was Vision’s forehead, with the…fake Mind Stone…

“The Mind Stone,” she snapped out of it to remember, before pointing right at the door behind her. “The Mind Stone is in there!”

“What?” Captain Rambeau snapped to attention.

“Westview, the Hex, Vision and me…all of it was to rebuild the Mind Stone,” Wanda filled her in. “And once she has it… _and_ our children…” Wanda darkened anew, until dots she should have connected a while ago brightened her right back up.

“But we have it now….and we can use it to…” Wanda looked again at Vision’s forehead, as her first real smile without any magical influence in five years lit up.

“We can bring you back for real! We give you the real Mind Stone, then we can take down the Hex and you’ll live! Then we can both finish off Agatha, get Billy and Tommy back, and it’ll all be okay!”

“Whoh, wait a minute! We need to seriously think about this!”

Any newfound fond feelings for Captain Rambeau were starting to die a very quick death. But enough were left that Wanda willed herself to at least listen to her, before she flung her out this time.

“Look, Hayward is still out there too. If he wanted Vision before, what do you think he’ll do to get him _and_ the real Mind Stone? Even if we can expose him, what do you think other Haywards would do to get them? They’d either weaponize him, or tear him limb from limb before some new Thanos out there finds out about that stone!”

“Someone already has…” Wanda couldn’t stop herself from remembering and voicing, before she realized how much she was proving the Captain’s point.

“Then I’m sorry, Wanda. This is the last thing I want to say and the last thing you want to hear. But if we bring him back to life with that stone for real, he’ll either be hunted the rest of his life, or used to cause something far worse than this place. Either by Hayward, Agatha or anyone like them.”

“There’s only one guaranteed way to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“I destroy it. And him. Before they ever get here.” Wanda faced the choice yet again. When she didn’t immediately say no, Monica dared to continue.

“It’s not fair to ask that from you again, I know. But it can work,” she put together as fast as possible before Wanda snapped out of it. “You can destroy the Stone and take down the Hex before Agatha gets back. I’ll get Darcy, make contact with Jimmy, and we’ll keep Vision’s body safe from Hayward until we expose him. Then once you defeat Agatha, find your kids and get out, we can help hide all of you until you’re exonerated, and then we can bury Vision properly this time. It _can_ work if we get going now!”

“I want to hear it from him.”

Wanda’s eyes blinked back tears, for far less joyful reasons than a few moments ago. It took everything to just do that, instead of taking Vision far away from here and forging a new Hex in a deserted location this time. But here she stood, as hard as it was to stay standing right now.

“You talk about him as if he has no say in this. And I don’t trust myself to give him a say. So we do _nothing_ until he decides what he wants,” she made herself agree to, and stared Monica down until she nodded her head too. Then both their heads turned to the dead synthezoid in question.

“I was faced with this choice once before. And I didn’t hesitate to give up my life…did I?” Vision asked, to which Wanda could only nod. “Then by all reason, I can’t hesitate to do it again.”

“And yet…”

Vision heard Wanda hold back half of a sob, and watched the Captain try to hold back from hurrying this along one way or the other. He then closed his eyes, willing himself to try and recall whatever strength made this easier back then.

Instead, he found himself reaching back even earlier.

“And yet…there’s a quote I’m beginning to piece together. Something along the lines of…a beautiful thing…even the most beautiful things…aren’t beautiful because they last.”

It didn’t feel like he remembered that exactly right. Whatever the case, it made Wanda stop and stare at him, not quite as sadly as earlier. Which gave him the inspiration to expand on that possibly inaccurate quote.

“Yet to think of how long you and our children can have each other, and go on together, after I’m gone this time…along with these Avengers I keep hearing about…”

“Yes…” Wanda recalled with a teary little laugh, followed by another half sob. “I really miss them…” not needing to say if she meant the Avengers or the children.

“And I’m sure they’ll welcome you and them with open arms. But we need to find them and get you all out of here to prove it. And to do that, to make sure Agatha and her people, and Hayward and his people, can never threaten them or you again…none of them can get that stone.”

Then that was it. Again.

Only this time there were no scientifically advanced last resorts to consider, to buy enough time to doom half the universe. There was no Agatha to give Wanda permission to doom the entire universe for her selfishness.

But that was it. All this to get Wanda right back where she started. From five years ago and about 15 minutes ago.

And yet unlike 15 minutes ago, she remembered that she was indeed capable of such a choice. Had compassion beyond her own wants, needs and pain to make such a choice, no matter what it took out of her. Because of what experience, hard earned wisdom, her own conscience and Vision had given her.

At least three of those things she could say she got back honestly when this was over. But that would only be a comfort long after it was over. In the moment, right now…

God, he wouldn’t even be able to say goodbye to Billy and Tommy. Let alone have enough time for one last goodbye with her. What would she even…could she even…

No. She could answer that after they were back in her arms. When they were all okay again. When they could all mourn him properly this time.

“Then I have to…” she began to confirm out loud. “I have to…” She looked to Vision for an extra sign of acceptance, assurance and pride to get her through this first step.

And all she saw was a dead, floating, expressionless corpse floating in front of her instead.

Wanda shook her head, not needing to see that until she absolutely had to. But when she looked back up, that was still there.

It hadn’t flashed back to the living Vision. The Hex hadn’t distorted reality to make him look alive again. She hadn’t distorted it. Then…

“Wanda, what happened to him?” Monica startled her even further.

“You see it too?” If she wasn’t just seeing this in her head, then how…

Both of them then saw the corpse of Vision being pinned against the wall by an invisible force. When they could turn away to look towards the newfound hole in the roof, they saw the source of that force make her reappearance.

She floated down in a darker version of her Halloween witch costume. One not meant just for an ironic bit of dress up. And for once, no jokes – inside or otherwise – could be seen on Agatha’s face.

Wanda had shown her full wrath to Agatha for the first time. Now it was her turn. Yet Monica was first to meet the challenge head on.

“It’s long past time you steal scenes somewhere else!” Agatha announced, flicking her arm to…literally poof the fast-charging Captain somewhere else.

Once she was gone and there was no one to stand between Agatha and Wanda anymore, Wanda’s fury had fully recharged. But unlike before, when Agatha was unfamiliar with facing a Wanda with self-confidence, a clear head and top priorities beyond Vision, she was ready.

Agatha blocked every one of Wanda’s magical blasts with her own, and on the stalemate would have gone for some time – if Agatha wasn’t impatient enough to get right to her ace. It was still floating, dead and lifeless against the wall, until Agatha made it fly over and land right in front of Wanda.

Before Wanda could get Vision’s corpse out of her sight, Agatha pushed it forward, pinning Wanda right against the wall. She was trapped between the wall and Vision’s body, the truth of his lifeless form impossible for Wanda to block away or distort again.

It was pinned close enough to her that even when she closed her eyes, the sight of it didn’t leave. As it didn’t in countless nightmares before this all started. As it didn’t in those occasional flights of consciousness she had here, which she could more easily block out and wave away. But not right now, when it was being pressed right into her face and her magic was being blocked from moving it.

“You know, bragging about trying and failing to stop someone isn’t the big hero moment you think it is,” Agatha taunted as she started walking up to them. “I get how big it must feel to someone with your track record, I do. But by most other standards, it just makes you that…much…more…PATHETIC!!”

Agatha punctuated her sudden, non-camera friendly rage by spinning Vision back around, pinning him back to the wall besides Wanda, and taking control of both their bodies. It was harder for Agatha to retake control of Wanda’s mind, yet she was already making progress.

“I…won’t let you have it…or our kids…” Wanda tried to defiantly get out.

“Oh sweetie…we’re well past the time when that could have mattered,” Agatha went back to confident condescension. Until Wanda found a new burst of energy to send her way.

Wanda and Vision’s corpse were still pinned to the wall, and Agatha was still digging her way into Wanda’s mind. Yet as Wanda sent out energy that was inching closer to Agatha, it was starting to look more like a fair fight. One that could turn the other direction in no time.

In that context, Agatha turning the reality distortion of the Hex back onto Vision, to make him appear alive again, looked like an unforced error.

Until Wanda saw him come back to life, only to see Agatha’s magic wrap back around her and seep into his mind. A sight that filled Wanda’s mind with torture, until Agatha had the opening to resume torturing it as well.

Wanda and Vision both struggled against Agatha’s control, trying in vein to block it out, and block out the awful sight and sounds of the other’s pain. It was perhaps too much to juggle, but they hadn’t given out quite yet.

Nonetheless, Agatha was clearly starting to win. Yet she didn’t sound too happy about it.

“I really did like you, you know,” she confessed to Wanda as she struggled against her might. “I wanted to make it easy on you! I thought giving this place to you and Vision forever, and being generous enough to wipe your memory of your kids before we left, was the least I could do to thank you!”

That little confession made Wanda’s magic surge back out, enough to push Agatha back just a little bit. Yet it wasn’t enough to break her hold on both her and Vision, or to stop her from confessing.

“But that’s what happens when you drag a show out too long. You go soft, resort to convoluted plots and forget the simplest solutions. Like say…sending both of you after SWORD, making sure you all kill each other, take the whole town and every bit of evidence out with you, and taking the Stone and the kids to their new owner before the last big bang! Old fashioned endings like that!”

With that, Agatha got enough of a hold into their minds to start…rearranging.

Instead of erasing their memories of the kids, she started implanting new ones. False ones of Hayward taking the kids, SWORD getting ready to experiment on them, and planning to break in the Hex and kill their parents as insurance. Enough painful flashes to ensure they’d make sure no one would survive such an attempt – not even them, or anyone else near them.

It was starting to work. But not quite enough yet. They were still fighting her, especially Wanda. She was fighting a lot harder than she did that first night, it had to be said. Even when Agatha started overloading her head with painful Vision memories, she wasn’t giving in as quick as before.

“Wanda…you can beat her, I know you can…” And there was that added advantage too.

Nothing she couldn’t flicker back off, at least. Then when Wanda flinched and gave Agatha room to advance in her mind, she flicked Vision back on. Then off and on and off and on again. And the distraction and unbalanced emotion it caused in Wanda gave Agatha enough control to ensure she couldn’t look away.

“You think I enjoy this?” Agatha piled on. “I just wanted to be the comic relief, rebuild an Infinity Stone, bring a cute couple back together and have them make kids to take away! Was that so hard? But like with everything else in your laughable, sad little life, you made it way harder than it had to be!”

The gaslighting, the metal torture, and the torture of seeing Vision flash in and out of life with every second was taking its toll on Wanda now. But even with all that, she still had enough to spit out “Sorry… _not_ sorry…neighbor…” as if she was in the 2010s episode that would never be, before hacking out a far more mocking laugh at Agatha than any her fake studio audience give her.

That above all seemed to tear it.

Without any more one-liners, Ralph jokes, set-ups or catchphrases left in her, Agatha went right for the final punchline.

She placed a hand on both Vision and Wanda’s heads, where she directly sent in the most rapid-fire blasts of magic and mind warping she could muster. She made Vision glitch in and out of life with every half a second, and made extra sure Wanda watched every millisecond of it. Made sure it seared into her brain just as much as the images of Hayward putting needles into her children did.

Wanda had fought harder than she ever had since the show started. She made her choice on what side of reality she wanted to be on. She fought for more than just keeping Vision and her so-called perfect show alive, and she chose to stand against an evil ready to obliterate universes of reality.

But while it was closer than before, it still wasn’t enough.

With a last bit of hateful spite, Agatha overloaded both Wanda and Vision’s brains with flurries of false imagery, horrible loss and traumatizing pain, until Wanda screamed out all her pain in front of Vision’s glitching face.

Only until that music to her ears rung out, and only until their brains were right on the brink of being too far gone to wipe out an army or a town, did Agatha have enough.

She let Wanda and Vision collapse back on the ground, unconscious in more ways than one. “Whoo…that went full dramedy real quick,” Agatha was now calm and satiated enough to joke again.

She settled down to do a last bit of fine tuning on their minds before they woke up. By the time the finishing touches were made and everything was in the right disorder, the person who should have wiped Vision and Rambeau out long before this happened finally showed his face.

“Whoh, full on wipe out!” the fake Pietro chuckled, before Agatha leveled him with a look.

“Not as full on as _some_ people were supposed to pull off first. Now salvage what little potential you had left and get your ‘nephews’ ready to go! We got about one episode left to get outta here! And I’m not gonna be the one to keep him waiting any longer.”

Once “Pietro” set off on a task even he could do, Agatha opened the door to the Mind Stone again and took hold of the first item she came for all along. She then locked up and picked her bunny rabbit back up, before taking a last look at the stars of her show.

“Later, kiddos. Till the third act, it was a gas…”

With one last wistful turned spiteful look at Wanda, Agatha poofed her and Vision out of the lair, then played herself off with canned studio applause one last time before humming her way out stage right.

Unlike with Monica, Agatha didn’t poof Wanda and Vision to some far off corner of the world. In fact, she only poofed them right around the actual corner, which was enough to wake them back up. But they weren’t fully awake until they remembered exactly what Agatha wanted them to remember.

“Hayward has our children,” Vision announced, right on script. “He’s going to experiment on them like he did with me. Then he’s going to destroy us, and Westview, to hide the evidence.”

“He won’t,” Wanda followed the script perfectly too. “He’s done taking everything away from me. From us. This is our home.”

“Then let’s fight for it.”

Even now, as Wanda headed to battle beside Vision, there was a voice inside her urging her not to do it. Trying to remind her she wasn’t the villain the world was all too eager to make her be. That she would about to make herself be for them, in the name of a lie.

Even when the whole world around her told her she was too powerful and too unstable to be anything but a “typical” crazy girl…when she let herself believe it and let herself get cut off from all those who would help her set the record straight in a heartbeat…when it was just easier to believe it and stop fighting a futile fight against it…that voice had endured all this time.

That voice and everything associated with it couldn’t be destroyed by robots, aliens or witches – just quieted down for a while. Yet it was still fighting to be heard over all the louder voices to the contrary, even right now.

That part of Wanda Maximoff didn’t just exist, despite all the loud voices arguing it didn’t, it had thrived. Against all theories, skeptics, critics, loudmouths, haters and supervillains, it and her were still here.

And as soon as Agatha couldn’t gaslight it out of Wanda’s memory any longer, her, those who worked for her and those she worked for wouldn’t stand a chance.

As for how much collateral damage would come first…that was pending one last cliffhanger.


End file.
